Blog - October 2004

31/10/2004 - Happy Halloween -

I've lost one of my socks, it's a Tuesday sock (it has the word Tuesday on it) I lost it because someone took my washing out the machine so they could put theirs in. I was there about 5 minutes after it was done but still someone had taken my washing out. I think I'm going to rig the washing machine I use so that if anyone touches the open door button while my washing is in there, it will drop a load of purple paint onto their head. I can then track down the person who tried to open my washing machine, by the fact they have purple hair, skin and clothes, and when they are about to go into their room I'll knock them out with one of these electric stun things, then I'll shove them on their bed and steal their socks. If that's not a scary enough for Halloween I don't know what is.

29/10/2004 - Broken Links & Programing -

Well I just recieved a very helpful e-mail informing me of a broken link on my hl resources page, on closer inspection I noticed I had missed a line break and forgotten to enbolden a title too, which none of you spotted =p. If you do spot anything, please do e-mail me to say so! There is a link to my mail in the menu, just click on my name. In other news, I'm now learning C++ in my course, just the basics at the moment, but I'm still enjoying it lots, I might get a bit less site work and scripting done as I'm devoting some of the effort to coding for my course. Also this weekend I'm going to learn what we are meant to have done in mechanics lectures, but it's so boring I keep falling asleep, oops!

27/10/2004 - Day off -

Today was according to the Imperial College time tables, commemoration day, though I have no idea what it is we're commemorating it does mean I get the whole day off, so that's good. I was going to do some work in my free day, as I have a problem sheet to do, a 300 word summary of 3000 word article (which should be amusing) and I'd quite like to learn some php. Unfortunately I didn't do any of these, in fact I did almost nothing useful, I slept in till 11am because I was watching fight club until 3 in the morning (ace film) and I've played with the special features and watched Gladiator and that's about it today. I think I'm going to have an early night so I'm all 'fresh' for tomorrow's 9 am start, mmm. Oh I've changed the darkfuture page slightly if you want to check that out.

26/10/2004 - Now with added JavaScript! -

Well yes the title says it. I've been messing around learning some JavaScript cause those crazy people at w3schools.com have got tutorials on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and all other crazy types of things. I'm playing about with JavaScript at the moment and then I'm going to have a go a php.

What I've actually done to the site is, added that little "It's today's day, and today's date", quite simple, but it's my first JavaScript script, wows! I've also added something to my css file so now links go yellow (proper yellow as opposed to the pale yellow they are normally) when you put your mouse over them, all go "ooo!" now. Thank You.

It appears that I'm not going to be going Airsofting tonight as it's been moved to next week. This does give me the opportunity to play about some more with JavaScript and possibly do a little Physics too! I've got the whole day off tomorrow so I think I'll try and go through my mechanics notes and understand it all (classical mechanics is my least favourite part of physics (boring & confusing) and our lecturer isn't that good, but bless him he tries), and maybe take a peek at my huge text book that I haven't really looked at yet.

25/10/2004 - CSS and Airsoft -

Well I've swapped over from using font tags to using a style sheet and some inline styling, all valid as you can see from the lower image in the menu. I was going to try and get the whole site as valid html 4.01 strict as opposed to html 4.01 transitional, which is what it is at the moment. Unfortunately target isn't a valid attribute for anchor tags (links) in strict and I really need those for my site and I can't find a subtitute attribute to perform the same function, so it's just gonna have to stay as transitional.

I maybe going to an airsoft skirmish thing tomorrow evening. Thing is Rachel pointed out how it's a bit wierd to want to shoot people for fun. I think though that I really shouldn't let philosophical reasoning alter if I'm going to have a good time or not. I will have to miss catered dinner but I think I can live with that.

24/10/2004 - Valid HTML 4.01 -

I just spent about 20 minutes or so converting my page to valid HTML 4.01, didn't take too long as there weren't many errors, so my coding ain't all bad! You will have noticed that I've put a valid HTML 4.01 logo in the menu as demonstration of this, .nfortunately I had to remove the link that checks if the pages is actually valid because it doesn't work if you're using frames! You'll also notice there is a grey bar between my frames which wasn't there before this is because HTML 4.01 doesn't support the frameborder border attribute, although almost all editors know what it means (means remove the grey bars please). I thought it was a little silly to have every page except the index page (the frameset) as valid html 4.01 so the grey bar is there, doesn't look bad in my opinion, though if you disagree I can remove it again, but then the valid html 4.01 logo will be a bit of a lie.

24/10/2004 - News or Blog -

My friend Perky from #clan^sYs (Quakenet IRC) pointed out when I asked the people in that channel to check out my website that my news section was really just a diary, I am forced by the fact this is true to agree. This raises the question, is an online diary not a blog? Should I rename this section from News, to Blog? There is a problem though, if I do rename it I'm acknowledging that this is for you (the readers) entertainment, it's not just 'keeping you informed'. This seems to me that it would mean I have to clearly articulate my thoughts and also consider what it is you'd want to hear about, this is a problem because I generally add to this page when I'm bored or at 2 in the morning when I've just finished writing a new section, when I'm definitely not going to be able to clearly articulate my thoughts, only very occasionally to I just want to say something. I will think on this, and depending on my conclusion you will see a change in the title of this section.

Now keeping you up to date with what I've been doing, =p, I've viewed a LOT of the content on w3Schools.com I've learned a couple of things about HTML I didn't know and I'm looking at JavaScript and php. The thing is, while this is a very good site for teaching, I like to have a nice help file with an index so I can just search for something when I need it so I can learn as I script / code. So either I'll have to take notes from these tutorials and type it up or I'll have to change my learning style... I'm going with the first I think. This does mean I'll have to investigate how to write help files!

23/10/2004 - Mapping, Coding, Hunger -

I've spent most of today messing about with mapping tools, extracting lost .wad files from maps, trying to recompile cargoship, writing a guide on how to make batch compilers using notepad (which I've uploaded to the site), trying to work out how to do funky stuff in cmd.exe to come to the conclusion you can't really do much. Also been experimenting with some unfamilar hmtl code, although I haven't actually used most of it I've used a couple of different fonts on the new page (see mapping >> Compile using Batch Files) so that it's not all so sameish. I've also written a few maths functions that work within mIRC, I've no idea why but I've written indentifiers for factorials, combinations, permutations and pi. They really need to set me more work here. Talking of work my Maths Mastery Test on friday was insultingly easy, I'm sure it's all gonna get harder now though. Anyway I'm going to upload my changes to the site and then get back to trying to recompile cs_cargoship it's not being very cooperative, and hammer editor keeps crashing if I use 3D textured polygons view when I have cargoship open... interesting. Oh I'd better eat something too, I think I've eaten a banana and half a pack of mcvities ginger nuts so far today, and it's 7pm...

23/10/2004 - Mapping Resources Page Added -

Well I managed to get up that mapping ultilities page but an hour or so late of being "later tonight". Oh well! I'm quite tired so there maybe some broken links, if you do find any please tell me so I can fix them. I've removed the copyright logo in the menu because there is quite a lot of stuff (especially in the page I've just put up) that isn't mine and I can't be bothered to state it's not my copyright everytime I mirror a file that I didn't create. Oh and about the domain name, I've just spent loads of money shopping for food so I might not be able to get it for a couple of weeks yet, or I might just dip in to my cash get it sooner and budget a bit better for the next couple of weeks.

22/10/2004 - Mapping Section Up -

I've added a mapping section, at the moment it just contains my two old maps and a page on my current project. This section will become a lot more active once Half-Life 2 is released and I can start mapping for that! I'll add some mapping links and tools which should be helpful to most mappers later tonight. I've also added a little copyright bit in the menu, although why anyone would want to steal my inane content is beyond me. Now I've got to go to my measurement and errors classwork thing.

21/10/2004 - Tired Maths & Updated Links -

I've written a new links page with more links (surprising), it doesn't have as many links as my old page (the links page on the old design), but all of these links are good (least I think / hope so). I may make it into a much fuller section at a later date with subsections and a few of the best links for each topic so you can choose yourself what you like best, or waste more time messing about more probably. Talking of the site, I've recieved my wad of papers marked FF7 Guide from home, so I'll be typing that up, possibly over the weekend. Now I'm going to bed because tired maths is impossible (as a found out today after having almost no sleep because I was playing FF7 till about 3 am), and I have a test which I need to get 70% tomorrow morning or they'll probably make me change course to standard physics, and I can't stand lab so I'll have to pass it.

20/10/2004 - The Snow Dome -

Although I only had 2 lectures and a classwork today I've been very busy, I've gone to the aforementioned lectures, I've copied up 2 sets of notes, done a maths problem sheet, had photos taken for joining the micro club (was not able to actually join because they seemed to be closed, the micro club btw is the Imperial College Union club for computing and video gaming). Then I went to the Snow Dome! Boarding was very fun although as is always the case with these places you spend far longer going up than down, this has really made me want to go on a ski trip, but I doubt I'll manage one this year but I might try and go next year! I have a sore bum now, trying to goofy turn at high speed on the advanced slope wasn't the best idea methinks...

20/10/2004 - Update On Tinkering -

Well I said I'd let you know what happened so here you go, my attempt to move the movies to the hard drive and change the registry worked fine, no problems and a nice increase in performance (although the FF7 installation now takes up 1.28 Gb rather than 431 Mb). I installed various different drivers, the standard catalyst drivers and some back version of the standard catalyst drivers, and neither worked for FF7 or indeed worked for much else so then I had to fix the graphics for the rest of my games by reinstalling the omega drivers that I already know don't work for FF7, it would appear and going to be running it in software mode.

19/10/2004 - Final Fantasy VII -

I was listening to the soundtrack of FFVII (I loved the game so much I bought the official soundtrack on CD, got it shipped from Japan =/) and had a sudden urge to play the game. I installed and then remembered that with newer graphics cards the game was rather buggy. I went in search of patches and found quite a few, but none of them seem to allow me to run in anything but software mode. I can live with this though, I just hope the chocobo racing patch worked (if you haven't played FF7 and don't know what this is, don't worry just part of the game I cba to explain but it needs to be done at one point so it has to work). I'm in danger of becoming slightly obsessed with this game once again, I'll try to avoid this but I am going to be creating an FF7 section on my site because I found when searching for patches that my favourite guide site has gone down, I fortunately have most of the content printed off so I will resurrect it here. I may also decide to host the FF7 Soundtrack so people who like it can also enjoy it (it's now almost impossible to get your hands on the CD version), it just depends if I can be bothered to fork out for the 400Mb or so to host the songs, and then if it proves popular the bandwidth it uses. Anyway, I'm currently copying all the movie files for FF7 to my Hard Drive and changing my registry so it looks on the hard drive rather than the cd to improve performance of the game, I'll let you know if I have any luck getting this and/or the hardware acceleration working.

19/10/2004 - Domain Names, Fire Alarms & Brown T-shirts -

I've put up a poll on the team-kb forums, I'm a member of Team-KB and the community is a generally nice one so I thought I'd ask them what they think, feel free to vote there yourself if you aint already. I couple of bad things have happened to be in the past few hours, at midnight last night the fire alarm went off in halls and everyone had to go stand outside because someone had used too much lynx in their room which wasn't nice, and before that my favourite white t-shirt which had managed to survive many a stain is now unfortunately brown, I need to learn to use a washing machine.... spoonofdeath.com seems the most popular on KB and it got the most votes in SimonG's Chatroom too, so you may see a redirect page here sending you to spoonofdeath.com in a few days or weeks.

18/10/2004 - New Website Design -

I've put together a new website design, it does use frames, but almost everything supports them now so I'm not bothered by that, it's very simplistic but that's kind of the idea, it's just meant to be functional and easy to navigate. It's very easy to navigate at the moment as there is only 3 sections, this (News), about me (which I've written from sratch rather than porting over so it's worth a read) and links (which has been ported from the old site, mainly, but will be undergoing a restructuring). I'll be adding a mapping section, a section on my music, book, film and games collections, and went I've finished revamping Ely mIRC there will be a scripting section. I'm planning to really give this site some meaningful or at least entertaining content, so I'm not going to be writing a blog as such but I will be keeping you updated with this. I'm currently trying to decide which domain name to buy, my opinions are harryjones.org, harryj.co.uk, dhfjones.com, removesafetylabels.com & spoonofdeath.com if you know which one you think should choose or if you notice typographical errors or have other suggestions please e-mail me [link removed, damn spam] =).